Howard Jacobson

Let discernment in matters of fashion and entertainment determine who should get the vote, and half the country would be disenfranchised.

— Howard Jacobson

If we doubt the power of literature and art to civilise, how come no one has ever been mugged by a person…

— Howard Jacobson

It is against the spirit of our non-discriminating times to openly prefer one sort of music to another, so let's just say…

— Howard Jacobson

Where there are no spectators, there is no sponsorship. Where there is no sponsorship, there is no money. Where there is no…

— Howard Jacobson

Reading literature remains a civilising activity, no matter that it's literature in which people do and say abominable things and the author…

— Howard Jacobson

Do you want to be strangely various, or do you want to be purely yourself? Either way, revere no one.

— Howard Jacobson

I wouldn't dream of watching motor racing, cycling, or golf - which aren't truly sports anyway.

— Howard Jacobson

The more educated we are, the less we are prepared to tolerate views contrary to our own.

— Howard Jacobson

Not every anti-Semite is Joseph Goebbels. You can not like Jews much and be no great harm to them.

— Howard Jacobson

It's never over till it's over with a friend.

— Howard Jacobson

The environment in which I studied was so safe, I thought I would die from the boredom of it.

— Howard Jacobson

If you had to say in one sentence what being Jewish means, it is being able to make fun of yourself Jewishly.

— Howard Jacobson

We shouldn't be too hard on vanity. It can be a mark of respect for the world.

— Howard Jacobson

What it is to see, what liberties are taken when one looks, where looking leaves one vis-a-vis one's subject, or how far…

— Howard Jacobson

When people speak to me of the torment of writing, I can think only of what it was like before I wrote:…

— Howard Jacobson

“T. S. Eliot told Auden tht the reason he played patience night after night was that it was the nearest thing to…

— Howard Jacobson

Nothing is definite, nothing is finished, nothing is determined.

— Howard Jacobson

'Legality' is a mad phrase to use when it comes to the founding of nations. Australia was founded on illegality. For the…

— Howard Jacobson

“He would come to school balancing his night's dreams like an acrobat bearing a human pyramid on his shoulders.”

— Howard Jacobson

There mustn't be a moment when we turn on the TV and think, 'There's Trump in the White House' - that must…

— Howard Jacobson

Nostalgic myself, I am a sucker for other men's nostalgia.

— Howard Jacobson

For my own poor part, I go to great lengths to keep my nostrils sightly.

— Howard Jacobson

Sometimes, a writer's life alone can tell a story.

— Howard Jacobson

The Christian Armenian story was the Polish Jewish story. The efforts of the Armenians to stay alive in Musa Dagh chimed with…

— Howard Jacobson

Does anyone who leaves a Baltic country ever want to return to it? Someone must, I suppose.

— Howard Jacobson